Design of PCIe-DMA bridge interface for High Speed Ethernet Applications

Abstract

Modern applications requires system to be scalable and computationally intensive. These requirements have driven the need for systems with more than one processing element. Traditional architecture includes one or more Central Processing Unit (CPU) where as present scenario demands for more accelerating devices such as Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) or custom accelerators with Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). FPGA device reconfigurablity and high speed Serializer Deserializer(SERDES) makes it more preferable. Designers find it difficult to couple FPGA to CPU, because of complex communication schemes such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCIe) needs to be implemented to fully utilize the potential of FPGA. This Paper proposes system architecture for PCIe-DMA bridge interface for high speed Ethernet applications, based on Intel FPGA platform. The system mainly comprises of PCIe AVMM DMA bridge, Avalon FIFO Memory, Tri-Speed Ethernet. The host processing system consist of Linux operating system, which uses PCIe AVMM DMA Bridge to communicate to end point device. The bridge provides conversion logic from PCIe address domain to Avalon address domain. This paper uses a custom designed Gigabit Ethernet (GBE) Card form factor VITA 74 standard to implement the proposed architecture. It discusses hardware and software flow for portable server.